2019 Division 1 Sunday

Used to be that 2019 was one class, at least, that the “other” clubs figured Tartan wouldn’t win. Once upon a time, Stars Nelson seemed to have a corner on the market, but defections took their toll—McKenna Hofschild, then Taylor McAulay, and more. Both went to the Fury, who quickly became a team that was very hard to beat. But Crossfire Theisen beat them nevertheless in last year’s final 43-34 to successfully defend their 2015 title. Tartan was the #5 seed and finished #7 in 2015, and was the #5 seed again last year and came in at #4. As a result, they went into this year’s Prelim as the #4 seed. They lost to Fury Blue 45-38 there, yet moved up another slot to #3 going into this weekend’s AAU Tournament. Tartan still has 5 players from a not-very-good team 2 years ago—Sara Scalia, Macy Guebert, Jadyn Hanson, Megan Baer and Shawna Mell. There were 3 changes last year, but none of them stuck. This year, the new additions are Anna Harvey, Frannie Hottinger, Makayla Johnson, Liza Karlen and Mykel Parham—in other words, a ton of size and another quick, aggressive point guard. This week, Scalia led the way with 48 points in 4 games, Guebert and Karlen scored 41, Hottinger 26, Harvey 21, Parham 14, Baer 12, Mell 7 and Johnson 6, for a total of 108 by the newcomers and 108 by the returnees! You have got to be kidding. But as much as all that size and those 108 new points has made an obvious difference, so too has the improvement of Scalia and Guebert, each of whom has raised her game substantially over the past year, and even the past few months. Scalia, in particular, has always been able to create her own shot. Now, she’s creating offensive opportunities for her entire team. Fury Blue 63 Crossfire Theisen 51 But, first, here was my feature game. (Grant covered the championship game, but I wanted to see these teams, too, and so I watched both this game and the other semi, won by Tartan over Stars Nelson 49-39, on the adjacent court. Looks like I focused on the wrong game.) But, here, it became obvious as this game went on that Crossfire’s awesome starting 5 is not quite awesome enough to overcome the advantage that the other elite team’s benches give them over Crossfire’s not-so-awesome bench. Crossfire ran out to an 11-5 lead to open the game as Kallie Theisen and Hannah Purcell each scored twice, then Taylie Scott added a steal-and-2. OK, Bailey Reardon came off the bench to score on a put-back for that 11-5 lead. But, that 1st substitution of 3 players from the Crossfire bench quickly led to an 8-0 Fury run. The Crossfire 1st string came back, and neither team led by more than 2 the rest of the 1st half. But, its only real run of the game had been squandered. It remained nip-and-tuck in the 2nd half through 37-36 Fury when the team in blue started to pull away. McAulay scored twice over the next 4 minutes but 3 other plays scored too in a 14-6 run. Down 9, Crossfire never got closer than 8. Theisen scored 22, Purcell 13 and Taylie Scott 11. Everybody else added 5 points. McAulay and McKenna Hofschild scored 13 each for the Fury, Carly Krsul and Emma Carpenter added 9, Abby Johnson 7 and Mackenzie Stumne 5, and everybody else added 4. In the other semi, Tartan was led by Scalia, Karlen and Guebert with 12, 11 and 8, respectively. Stars Nelson got 15 from Jaide Pressley and 12 from Aja Wheeler, but nobody else scored more than 4. Tartan led by as many as 11 early on and the Stars never got closer than 5. Their best shot was at 32-26 at about 5 minutes, but Tartan won the next 3 minutes 6-3 with time running out on the Stars. Scalia and Karlen each scored twice down the stretch. The Best of 2019 D1 This is just among the teams and players I saw and reported above, which means the top 4 teams only. Post—Liza Karlen, Tartan 10th EYBL, 6-2. Karlen is just a freshman, playing up a year and she is already he best post not only in the class of 2020 but for at least one weekend now she has been the top post in the class of 2019. She is a bull to the rim, where she finishes with contact, and there is no matador nor cape nor sword even that can seem to stop her. Sara Stapleton of Stars Nelson and Abby Johnson of the Fury are solid. Karlen outscored Stapleton 11-2 in the semi, and she outscored Johnson 11-2 in the final. Tartan’s own Mykel Parham, who scored 14 points in 4 games and threw 2 bee-you-tee-ful passes when I watched her against Stars Nelson, could be on this list. Power Forward—Kallie Theisen, Crossfire Theisen, 6-2. Finishes around the rim, including from some very, very tough angles. Must be good at math. Frannie Hottinger of Tartan, and Carly Krsul of Fury are also very, very good. Hottinger attacks without the ball, then catches and shoots. Krsul likes to take the ball to the rim herself. Both are hard to stop, but not quite as hard as Theisen. Even in Crossfire’s loss to Fury Blue, she scored 22. Small Forward—Hannah Purcell, Crossfire Theisen, 6-0. Nobody her size is as mobile or handles the ball half as well as Purcell, and she even outscored Theisen for he week, 57-53. Macy Guebert of Tartan and Emma Carpenter of the Fury are both accomplished scorers. Carpenter is probably a better defender. Point Guard—Sara Scalia, Tartan 10th EYBL As I said, she has improved her overall floor game 300 percent in the past year. Can contribute without scoring now, not that that is likely to happen very often. But, she can and she does. McKenna Hofschild remains the mightiest mite at 5-3. Aja Wheeler is #3 at the 1. Shooting Guard—Jaide Pressley, Stars Nelson, 5-8. Taylor McAulay of the Fury, and Kaylee Nelson of Crossfire deserve a mention.